Compartment No. 6

Strangers on a train, once again. But in this Cannes Grand Prix co-winner from Finland, set in post-Soviet Union Russia sometime during the late 1990s (there’s a fleeting reference to Titanic), its two passenger protagonists bond in grittier fashion than the mutual attraction Jesse and Celine experience in Richard Linklater’s similarly troped Before Sunrise, in which an idealized romance between those train travelers slowly blooms as they reveal themselves in a conversation that flows the full length of the movie. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy made such a perfectly attractive couple in Linklater’s dialogue-driven film that their flowering ardor seemed preordained. Here, the deglamorized pair of rail-bound characters sharing the cramped second-class berth in the title, Laura (Haarla) and Ljoha (Borisov), initially clash in a meet-uncute of bad first impressions that portend nothing good.

Eventually, the claustrophobic setting begins to breathe a little as a tenuous connection begins to form between them, albeit in fits and starts. is no destined love story, or a love story at all for that matter – there’s but a brief kiss. Instead, it’s a simple contemplation of chance human interaction, like when the random assignment of train compartments briefly brings strangers together at a moment when they could use a little compassion. This blossom may have its thorns, but it smells just as sweet.

Loosely based on a 2011 novel by Rosa Liksom, the film’s intentions are opaque at the outset. Laura is a Finnish archeological student en route to the Arctic Circle to see hieroglyphics recently discovered near the northwestern port city of Murmask, traveling alone because her more sophisticated older girlfriend Irina (Drukarova), a literature professor who runs in pretentious academic circles, has backed out of accompanying her on the trip. (Phone calls to Irina during the early part of the journey reveal her absence as a passive-aggressive way to break off the relationship.) Laura’s replacement bunkmate on the train is the similarly aged Ljoha, an uneducated, working-class stiff also heading to the Murmask region to check out a prospective mining job. He’s an obnoxious bore who drinks cheap vodka and eats sausages with his hands, terrorizing Laura in a waking nightmare from which she unsuccessfully tries to escape by spending time in the cafe car or bribing the conductor. (At one point, he attempts to grab her genitals, crudely asking whether she’s a sex worker.)

For a while, you wonder whether the movie will become a thriller about the perils of solo travel, particularly for single females. But the intimacy of director Kuosmanen’s Dogme 95-inspired camerawork hints that something more is happening here. A shift in the narrative finally occurs thanks to that great equalizer, alcohol. From there, the two actors nicely take the lead, especially Borisov, whose facial expressions sadly reveal the fragility of someone who’s rarely experienced kindness.

On a final note, Compartment No. 6 is an international collaboration funded by a variety of private and public sources in several countries, including Finland, Estonia, Norway, Germany, and – yes – Russia. Given the abominable atrocities Vladimir Putin is currently inflicting upon the Ukrainian people, the likelihood of any similar artistic partnerships in the future is slim. As Ljoha asks Laura near the film’s end once they reach their destination: “That’s it?” It’s a question that takes on new meaning during these terrible times.